EU

They're laughing now,but later? "Are we nearly there"? The cry of the bored traveller who has not kept alert on the journey, disappointed to be still on the train but not at the destination. When Nick Clegg, with an almost child-like approach, asked us to say which laws we wanted him to magic away he had not been more then half awake.

Perhaps like a child on the way to the seaside he had nodded off, lulled by the motion, and had dreamt all was well. Poor man! His plan was for us to direct our attention to the pettiness of government, he would do the rest. What happened was that many people, well aware a lot of government is awful, said they were more than happy to let this stand, for a while. But what they would really like would be for large chunks of legislation that have come from the EU to be removed first. Clegg, as an ex-MEP, had only himself to blame for this pratfall. Is this the sort of mistake the Deputy PM should be making?

However, the devoted EU supporter is always of the opinion that the UK public is further on than 'nearly there' when it comes to the EU. They like to think that 'the journey', the act of acceptance, is over. We have arrived and we are all so happy with out lot.

William Hague, or some journalists on his behalf, tried something similar.

It is a well known fact that blogs tend to be more eurosceptic than the conventional media. As even the most casual observer of this subject will attest, the most most craven is the BBC. In the print media there is a left/right split; here the Guardian vies for the top prize as the No1 euro-fanatic. So from the political right comes the Spectator, and having it both ways too as this article is published on their blog and in the print version. It's one of the most thoughtful articles in a long while combining the UK's financial problems with our membership of the EU. A must read - HERE.Why give it away?

There's no reason for it
The recent shooting incident in Cumbria was a mixture of many things. So much so that any easy understanding of it at this early stage is impossible. However, despite the tragedy, some people saw it as an opportunity to campaign for more restrictions on gun ownership. This is pathetic and an insult to those who have suffered as a result of this incident. People die as a result of unhygienic hospitals yet nobody campaigns for restrictions on hospitals. Perhaps eventually it will be seen that more law, more restrictions, are not the obvious and only route out of any problem. This is not the time to fall on simple 'facts' and, wrongly, extrapolate from them.

goodbye, auf Wiedersehen?
Just weeks ago all of the UK political parties had their own somewhat unrealistic hopes and fears for the future following the general election. A hung parliament was indicated by some polls, however, the variations between polls was too great to take this to heart and there were distractions. Typical was the term balanced parliament, this is ridiculous, what does it mean and what was wrong with the old term? A hung parliament means just that. But balanced implies beneficial equilibrium, this is contrary to what a democracy needs. It must be possible for a majority to make changes, did some media guru invent the term?

Eurozone finance chief Jean-Claude Juncker has given his backing to controversial plans for Brussels to vet the budgets of all 27 EU countries before they are put to national parliaments, see here

Seeing that the Court of Auditors in Brussels has refused to sign off the EU budget for 14 years, this is a bit rich. Marta Andreasen, the whistleblower former chief accountant to the EU, writes in her book 'Brussels Laid Bare', that:

the EU's accounting system is massively open to fraud as nearly all its transactions are impossible to trace. Even more serious, I was asked blatantly to contradict financial regulations by signing off accounts, despite knowing them to be untrue. I was not granted the freedom to address these shortcomings, and, worse, actively discouraged from alerting others.